Physical Properties of Adhesive Root Canal Sealers

Abstract

For adhesive root canal sealers released in recent years, there have been few studies on their physical properties based on the ISO standard. In particular, the properties of sealers containing adhesive monomer have not yet been studied. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the physical properties of the adhesive root canal sealers Super-Bond™ RC-Sealer (Sun Medical) and MetaSEAL™ (Parkell) containing 4-META. In addition, items that did not satisfy the ISO standard were also tested for other sealers. The experiments were performed in accordance with ISO6876 specifications (2001, Dental root canal sealing materials) for the seven items of Flow, Working time, Setting time, Film thickness, Dimensional change following setting, Solubility and Radiopacity. The results indicated that each sealer satisfied the physical properties of the ISO standard except the dimensional change following setting. Although the ISO standard for this item is shrinkage of less than 1.0% and expansion of less than 0.1%, the expansion values of both sealers were over the ISO standard. Additional experiments were carried out to evaluate the dimensional change of other endodontic sealers: Epiphany® (Pentron), Epiphany® SE™ (Pentron), Tubli-Seal™ (SybronEndo), AH Plus® (Dentsply DeTrey), Root Canal Sealer (Henry Schein) and Sealapex™ (SybronEndo), following the setting test. These values of all the sealers except Sealapex™, which did not set under this test condition, were over the ISO standard. Epiphany® showed the maximum value and Tubli-Seal™ the minimum value among all the samples. The findings suggested that there is a clear positive correlation between the percentage of hydrophilic monomer in the sealer matrix and the dimensional change. Although the dimensional change values of eugenol-based Tubli-Seal™ and Root Canal Sealer were less than those of sealers containing hydrophilic monomer, elution behavior from the eugenol-based sealer was observed when immersed in distilled water. Regarding the seven items in accordance with ISO6876 for RC-Sealer and MetaSEAL™ containing 4-META, each sealer satisfied the ISO standard for the six items except dimensional change and was suitable for use as an endodontic sealer. All other six endodontic sealers did not satisfy the ISO standard in terms of dimensional change.